Merry Christmas!
Steel drummers, “Silent Night,” London, 12/11
***
Glasses player, “Jingle Bells,” Bonn, 12/06
***
Brass band, “This Christmas” (1:55-, D. Hathaway), New Orleans, 12/09
street music: New Orleans
Brass band, 5/12
Rarely has dying sounded so joyous.
Glen David Andrews, “I’ll Fly Away”
Live, New Orleans (Zion Hill Baptist Church), 2008
**********
lagniappe
reading table
[P]eople exist for us only in the idea that we have of them.
—Marcel Proust, The Fugitive (translated from French by Peter Collier)
*****
Each year on this auspicious day, alone and foreign
here in a foreign place, my thoughts of you sharpen;far away, I can almost see you reaching the summit,
dogwood berries woven into sashes, short one person.—Wang Wei (701-61), “9/9, Thinking of My Brothers East of the Mountains” (trans. from Chinese by David Hinton)
The parade never ends.
Rebirth Brass Band, New Orleans (Treme Sidewalk Steppers Annual Second Line Parade), 2/6/12
***
***
**********
lagniappe
A highly anticipated moment of the social aid and pleasure club parade season is when the Treme Sidewalk Steppers emerge from the African-American Museum. First, comes the call of the trumpet and then a flash of color can be spied as a member waves a feathered fan and dances out the door. One by one, the Steppers strut their stuff as they energetically file down the sidewalk with a “look-at-me” attitude. Those in the waiting crowd on Gov. Nicholls Street, peer through the iron fence that surrounds the lovely building and gardens, trying to get a better look at the spectacle. They cheer at the triumph.
The Treme Sidewalk Steppers . . . was established in 1994 by a group of friends who were enthusiastic second line followers.
“We’d always go to the parades and parade on the sidewalk and have fun,” Sidewalk Steppers president Charlie Brown explains, “so we decided we might as well come up with our own.”
Brown as well as some dozen or so originators, including New Birth Brass Band’s Tanio Hingle and Kerry “Fat Man” Hunter, all hailed from the Treme so the name of their club was a natural. “That’s our neighborhood; that’s where we’re from,” Brown proudly states. “Being the oldest Black neighborhood in America and being raised around all these different musicians and just to have the culture makes it special to us. It’s in your blood–that’s what makes it so authentic with us.
***
Since most of the club’s members grew up in the Treme neighborhood, they boast deep roots in and respect for the second-line culture. The Steppers take that base and serve it up with its certain, individual style and personality.
“We try to keep it in the tradition but we have our own little swagger,” Brown says. “We try to be unique in our dress and our ways. We love the fun in dancing and showing off our little parade gear. We take pride in it. We don’t take shortcuts with our parade.”
The Sidewalk Steppers’ outfits are usually specially designed and tailored for them rather than store-bought. Creating their decorative fans is a group effort that’s accomplished under the direction of original member Corey Holmes. . . .
While some clubs keep the colors of their outfits secret, the Treme Sidewalk Steppers declare them right on the route sheet . . .
“We want the people to know,” Brown explains. “Maybe our followers would like to dress in the colors we’re wearing. We invite that. We really love the people that love us and we appreciate them all. The followers made us–they made us as good as we are or are supposed to be.”
The Treme Sidewalk Steppers also kept the second liners in mind when drawing up the parade route. The procession primarily travels on wide thoroughfares like Basin Street, Broad Street, N. Claiborne Ave. and St. Bernard Ave. that offer the crowd room to move.
“We use main streets so people can be comfortable and we try to spread out so you can enjoy us and view us well,” he explains.
***
“The Sidewalk Steppers mean everything to me,” Brown says with deep sincerity. “We give thanks to all the people who came before and how they gave this history to us and showed us the way.”
Some places actually exist because they could never be imagined.
Treme Sidewalk Steppers Second Line, Rebirth Brass Band (with guest Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, trumpet), New Orleans, 2/1/09
Happy Mardi Gras!
**********
lagniappe
Mardi Gras in New Orleans (with Arthur Hardy)
more favorites from the past year
Only in a city where cooking, like music, is considered an art would music be considered, like food, a necessity.
*******
Rainy?
It doesn’t matter.
Any day’s a perfect day for a parade.
The Black Men of Labor 2009 Second Line Parade, New Orleans
(Originally posted 11/18/11.)
*******
Mardi Gras Indians
Young Wild Magnolias, St. Joseph’s Night, New Orleans, 3/19/09
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
United Indian Practice, Handa Wanda, New Orleans, 1/2/11
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Indian Practice, 7th Ward, New Orleans, 11/22/10
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Spy Boy Demond, Seminoles, New Orleans, c. 2010
Vodpod videos no longer available.(Originally posted 9/30/11.)
funeral service and second line for Snooks Eaglin
9/27/09, New Orleans
Irma Thomas, “Singin’ Hallelujah”
*****
Charmaine Neville, Clarence “Frogman” Henry, Allen Toussaint, et al.
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
***
“Hush, Somebody’s Calling My Name”
Has Monday ever sounded better?
Snooks Eaglin (with George Porter, Jr., bass; Kenneth Blevins, drums)
Live, New York (Lone Star Roadhouse), early ’90s
“I Just Cried Oh”
***
“Baby Please”
***
“Lipstick Traces”
***
“You Don’t Have To Go”
***
“Young Girl”
***
“Red Beans” (with Jon Cleary, piano)
***
Great guitar players don’t play notes—they play sounds.
You can’t write a song like this, you can’t play it like this, unless your ears are open to all kinds of music.
Allen Toussaint, “Southern Nights,” live
**********
lagniappe
reading table
If they find a copy of Richard Yates’s Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, they buy it. It is as if they’ve found a baby on the front step. They peek inside, examine the dog-earing, the marginal scribbles. Or perhaps it’s a clean copy, which carries its own kind of sadness. In either case, they embrace it, though they already have multiple copies. Those are irrelevant to the one they would be abandoning if they left the book behind. This is a hostess gift you can give any fiction writer, guaranteed to delight her even though she already has it. Regifting becomes an act of spreading civilization.
—Ann Beattie, Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life (2011), “7 Truths About Writers” (#2)
music clip of the day 